National Emergency: Building the Case for “The Great Wall of Trump”

“The lawless state of our southern border is a threat to the safety, security, and financial well-being of all Americans. We have a moral duty to create an immigration system that protects the lives and jobs of our citizens.”

“Wealthy politicians and donors push for open borders while living their lives behind walls and gates and guards. Meanwhile, working-class Americans are left to pay the price for mass illegal migration…”

~President Donald J. Trump

Government Shutdown Showdown: Trump’s war over the border wall

On Friday February 15^th, 2019, President Donald J. Trump boldly declared that the American southern border with Mexico is in a perpetual state of National Emergency. This, after the President exhausted literally every option in his arsenal to negotiate in bipartisan good faith with Congress to solve the border problem. The only common-sense solution to curb the rampant border crossings by illegal migrants and impending caravans from Central America is through the construction of an impregnable wall along the southern border with Mexico. Ever since early December 2018, President Trump has clashed with Congressional Democrats, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. During a heated debate at the White House, President Trump made the factual and public case to Pelosi and Schumer that the portions of the southern border that are already protected by walls have seen dramatic drops in illegal border crossings, stating,

“But the wall will get built. A lot of the wall is built. It’ been very effective. I asked for a couple of notes on that. If you look at San Diego, illegal traffic dropped 92 percent once the wall was up,” Trump declared. “El Paso, illegal traffic dropped 72 percent, then ultimately 95 percent once the wall was up. In Tucson Arizona, illegal traffic dropped 92 percent. Yuma, it dropped illegal traffic 95 to 96 percent.” 

But despite the facts, Pelosi and Schumer remained insistent on denying that there was any crisis at the southern border, while arguing that the President was orchestrating a “manufactured crisis” to justify the construction of the wall. The Democrats’ inability to recognize the rise in drug related deaths in the United States as a result of drug cartels transporting hundreds of pounds of harmful substances like fentanyl, methamphetamine, and heroin by the truck-load, is a gross neglect to how so many vulnerable Americans suffer tragic overdoses every year.

In 2017, nearly 70,000 Americans lost their lives to drug overdose, 80% of which is illegal substance transported over the southern border. Thanks to violent criminal gangs like MS-13, many innocent Americans have lost their lives at what could have been preventable assaults by aliens who repeatedly crossed the border after a series of faulty catch-and-release deportations. This leaves many angel Moms and Dads to grieve and wonder why politicians on the Left fight so hard to deny a common-sense and simple safety measure that guarantees a total reduction of illegal crossings.

With President Trump persistent in his demands for border funding toward his wall, reducing his initial offer to a measly $5.7 billion, compared to a roughly $4.4 trillion budget proposed by Congress, Congressional Democrats have no basis to argue that Trump’s offer is asking too much. House and Senate Democrats have only played political games with Trump’s constant offers to negotiate, as Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer hardened their hearts more and more in refusing to provide the Trump Administration a sufficient amount of border wall funds. This obstruction would lead to the longest government shutdown in U.S history, occurring from midnight EST on December 22nd, 2018 until Friday January 25th, 2019, as the President made the case to not sign any bill that does not include adequate border funding.

After Democrats refused to provide the Trump Administration with the proposed $5.7 billion in funds, policy analysts have informed the media of several avenues in obtaining the needed funding through various departments in the Executive branch. After allowing Congress 15 days following the signing of a measure that temporarily opens the federal government on January 25^th, Democrats and Republicans had two weeks to negotiate an official funding bill that contains sufficient funding for border security. Despite multiple opportunities and repeated offers for negotiations, Democratic leadership in Congress largely remained unmoved by talks for border funding, pushing for a bill that only included a mere $1.375 billion in funding for a wall; amounting to less than half of the proposed amount needed.

Thus, President Trump was prompted to deliver a bold and historic National Emergency declaration on Friday February 15^th, making the case for why the construction of a border wall with Mexico must occur by any means necessary. This marks the first time that a sitting President has had to declare a state of emergency to address the continued crisis at the southern border, seeking to accomplish what 12 Presidents before him have failed to do following the passage of the 1976 National Emergencies Act.

In essence the act states, “With respect to Acts of Congress authorizing the exercise, during the period of a national emergency, of any special or extraordinary power, the President is authorized to declare such national emergency. Such proclamation shall immediately be transmitted to the Congress and published in the Federal Register.”

Through declaring the National Emergency on the border as an alternative means for building the wall, White House officials have recently disclosed where the now $8 billion in proposed border funding will originate, primarily via multiple Executive departments. A congressional aide to the President spoke on there being a condition of anonymity, allowing for Trump to divert roughly $21 billion in military construction funds that aren’t already obligated for use on border projects, having the power to do so without approval from Congress.

• $1.375 billion from the Homeland Security appropriations bill
• $600 million from the Treasury Department’s drug forfeiture fund
• $2.5 billion from the Department of Defense’s drug interdiction program
• $3.6 billion from the Department of Defense’s military construction account

President Trump exercises his plenary Article 2 powers under the U.S. Constitution to declare a National Emergency, with many referring to the fact that every president dating back to 1976 have declared a host of National Emergencies to address certain issues facing the nation. Perhaps the most famous example being George W Bush declaring a National Emergency in response to the 911 terror attacks. President Trump argues that it is well within his enumerated constitutional powers to declare a state of emergency in response to the rampant illegal crossings from the southern border, leading to a heightened case of drug-related deaths, illegal-alien based homicide victims, MS-13 gang violence, and other pressing threats to American safety and security.

Trump was even wise enough to predict that his declaration would be met by swift and immediate objection from Democrats, Fake News media outlets, Democrat Governors, and eventually the 9^th Circuit Court in San Francisco, where the matter is looked to be rejected and ultimately reach the Supreme Court where it looks to be affirmed by the conservative-leaning majority. Below are key excerpts from the President’s daring declaration to safeguard America’s southern border and fund border wall construction.

President Trump delivers National Emergency for the southern border

PRESIDENT TRUMP: So, our country is doing very well economically, and we’ve done a lot. But one of the things I said I have to do, and I want to do, is border security because we have tremendous amounts of drugs flowing into our country, much of it coming from the southern border.

When you look and when you listen to politicians, in particular certain Democrats, they say it all comes through the port of entry. It’s wrong. It’s wrong. It’s just a lie. It’s all a lie. They say walls don’t work. Walls work 100 percent. Whether it’s El Paso — I really was smiling because the other night I was in El Paso. We had a tremendous crowd and — tremendous crowd — and I asked the people, many of whom were from El Paso, but they came from all over Texas. And I asked them; I said, “Let me ask you the — as a crowd, when the wall went up, was it better? You were there, some of you.”

It was not only better; it was like 100 percent better. You know what they did.

But that’s only one example. There are so many examples. In El Paso, they have close to 2,000 murders right on the other side of the wall. And they had 23 murders. It’s a lot of murders. But it’s not close to 2,000 murders, right on the other side of the wall, in Mexico.

Therefore, everyone knows that walls work. And there are better examples than El Paso, frankly. You just take a look, almost everywhere. Take a look at Israel. They’re building another wall. Their wall is 99.9 percent effective, they tell me — 99.9 percent. That’s what it would be with us, too. The only weakness is they go to a wall and then they go around the wall. They go around the wall and in. OK? That’s what it is, very simple.

And a big majority of the big drugs — the big drug loads don’t go through ports of entry. They can’t go through ports of entry. You can’t take big loads because you have people — we have some very capable people, the Border Patrol, law enforcement, looking.

You can’t take human traffic, women and girls — you can’t take them through ports of entry. You can’t have them tied up in the backseat of a car or a truck or a van. They open the door, they look. They can’t see women with tape on their mouth or three women whose hands are tied. They go through areas where you have no wall. Everybody knows that. Nancy knows it. Chuck knows it. They all know it. It’s all a big lie. It’s a big con game.

We’ve detained more people. Our border agents are doing such incredible work. Our military has been incredible. We put up barbed wire on top of certain old walls that were there. We fixed the wall and we load it up with barbed wire. It’s very successful. But our military has been fantastic and I want to thank them. And it’s very necessary. We’ve broken up two caravans that are on their way. They just are breaking. They’re in the process of breaking up. We have another one that we haven’t been able to break up yet.

I have such respect for these people, angel moms, angel dads, angel families. I have great respect for these people, these are great people. These are great people. They’re fighting for their children that have been killed by people that were illegally in this country. And the press doesn’t cover them, they don’t want to, incredibly, and they’re not treated the way they should be. They’re fighting for other people because they don’t want to — what happened to their children or husband or anybody.
So, the — the order is signed. And I’ll sign the final papers as soon as I get into the Oval Office. And we will have a national emergency, and we will then be sued, and they will sue us in the 9th Circuit, even though it shouldn’t be there, and we will possibly get a bad ruling, and then we’ll get another bad ruling, and then we’ll end up in the Supreme Court, and hopefully we’ll get a fair shake and we’ll win in the Supreme Court.

Conclusion: battle for the border wall rages on

President Trump’s Emergency declaration for the southern border comes at a time when illegal immigration has grown into a major crisis-based issue. The stiff opposition to the border wall comes a shock to many Republicans, who have agreed with President Trump in seeing the results of the partial border walls at key cities like El Paso, Tijuana, and Yuma. President Trump was prescient to predict the heavy criticism and opposition that he would receive from Democrats, the mainstream media and eventually the lawsuit to be filed against his act in the predominately liberal 9^th Circuit court.

Truly, Trump has every right to declare a National Emergency in what is a clear crisis at the southern border, which has not been solved except in part by the partial walls separating the United States from Mexico that drastically reduced illegal crossings. Building the American border wall transcends a simple promise that the President has made during the 2016 election cycle, it has become a safeguard against rampant homicide by repeat criminal aliens, violence by gangs like MS-13, and the massive increase in drug overdose related deaths caused by violent drug cartels.

According to QAnon (President Trump’s alter ego where his military intelligence officers give selected classified intelligence to We the People as a way of bypassing the corrupt CIA-Operation Mockingbird fake media), thus QAnon declares that the real reason Democrats are so intransigent about not protecting our border with Mexico is that for decades they have used our open southern border for human trafficking, child sex trafficking, CIA/Democrats/RINO Republicans drug trafficking. Remember, recently convicted Mexican drug kingpin, El Chapo testified in court that he gave hundreds of millions in bribes to Mexican and U.S. politicians including $100 million to former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto (president from 2012-18).

In late January, border officials seized the largest amount of fentanyl in United States history, capturing 114.3 kg of the extremely dangerous drug. In addition to this two MS-13 gang members were accused of assassinating a rival gang member at a public subway in Queens New York. Furthermore, dozens of Angel Moms and Dads are grieving over the loss of their loved ones at the hands of criminal aliens, murders that could have been prevented had they not been allowed to escape into the borderless country through President Obama’s ill-conceived catch-and-release policy. The border crisis in the United States is very real and must be addressed through the simplest and most effective safeguard: the border wall, i.e. “The Great Wall of Trump”!

Tags: america, border security, congress, Democrats, Donald Trump, featured, mexico

Category: Socrates Corner